[Xorg] Re: [Fontconfig] adding/distributing new fonts

[Jim Gettys]

Please take a look at the license I worked out with Bitstream
for the Vera fonts.

It manages to meet free software standards, while protecting
the interests of the font designers to not have their name
on modifications they do not approve of, and ensuring that
they not just be dropped into a font resale system, but allowing
them to be used in any other circumstance freely.

See http://www.gnome.org/fonts

Fonts need on-going maintenance (new characters need
to be added from time to time), so unmodifiable fonts end up,
with time, not being all that useful.
                          Regards,
                            - Jim Gettys

On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 19:45, Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> Thank you very much for the comments.
> 
> But still I do not fully understand how to add a new font
> to the default xorg distribution. What is the detailed license
> requirement? Alan's opinion is what I thought initially.
> 
> I think font is something like picture or novel which does not
> need to be freely modified. The font designers won't like that though
> some will. I remember that in the current xorg distribution,
> modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed. 
> 
> Here are some free font project in Korea.
> 1. http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/
> - almost ready to release within a week.
> - current snapshot can be downloaded from
> http://chem.skku.ac.kr/~wkpark/project/font/UnFonts/20040805/ )
> 
> 2. http://kldp.net/projects/baekmuk/
> - actual fonts are in cvs tree
> - already included in many linux distributions including debian/gentoo/fedora
> 
> Can anyone please check if these fonts are ready to be included?
> We are also planning to apply for government fund for commercial high quality
> fonts so that we can purchase the whole rights including free redistribution.
> 
> If xorg distribution can hold more fonts for double-byte character users,
> then it would benefit many many people.
> 
> Thanks very much.
> 
> /Shawn
> 
> 
> On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 17:44:09 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot
> <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net> wrote:
> > On ven, 2004-08-06 at 08:18 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> > > xorg at freedesktop.org is the mailing list for xorg, and would be a much
> > > better place to discuss adding fonts to the X.Org distribution, so I've
> > > cc'ed it.
> > >
> > > I believe the license requirements are that it be some sort of open source
> > > license, but that the requirements for fonts are a bit looser than source
> > > code.
> > >
> > > TrueType fonts are the currently preferred format.
> > 
> > And of course the preferred way would be to have a single set of
> > consistent truetype fonts with full unicode coverage.
> > 
> > If everyone could just contribute glyphs to a single font family (the
> > Vera fonts Bitstream liberated for gnome seems a good base) instead of
> > multiplying fonts with partial coverage this would be better for all of
> > us.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > --
> > Nicolas Mailhot
> > 
> > 
> > 
>